OSULFUS

OSWALD

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Jn Migne, P. G. t. xcii. col. 826, u No one is afriend of the dead save Ostrus alone.” [Leo I.]

[G. T. S.]

OSULFUS, a wayward disciple of Alcuin,mentioned in the Lives of Alcuin (ed. Duchesne,cap. viii. sec. 15, ed. Froben. cap. x. sec. 114),and supposed to be the person addressed byAlcuin in his Epp. 206, 207, Froben. 157, 158.{Pat. Lat. C. 64, 99, 481, 482.) [C. H.]

OSWALD (1) (OsuuAiiD, Osguald) —a namedear to the Northumbrian church and people—was a son of Ethelfrith, king of Northumbria byAcha or Acca, daughter of Ella, and sister ofEdwin, both of them Northumbrian kings(Beda, iii. 6). Oswald was born circa A.D. 605.When his father Ethelfrith was slain in battle inA.D. 616, Oswald and his brothers sought refugein Scotland where they continued during Edwin’sreign. Ethelfrith and his children were heathens,but, during their exile, Oswald and twelvecompanions were converted to Christianity andwere baptized by the monks of Iona (Beda, iii. 3 ;Vita S. Columhae , i. 113), Edwin fell in battlein A.D. 633, and his death was followed by thereturn of his kinsmen, two of whom, Osric andEanfrith, had a brief tenure of royal authority.They were both of them slain by the Britishchieftain, Cadwallon, or Caedwalla, and thenOswald came to the forefront as the repre-sentative of his family and race. His first stepwas to collect an army and take the field againstCaedwalla, encouraged, as Adamnan tells us, byan appearance and a promise of victory fromColumba himself.

The contending armies met in A.D. 634, at aplace called, by Beda, Hefenfelth, which has beenidentified with St. Oswalds, some seven or eightmiles to the north of Hexham in Northumber-land {Memorials of Hexham , Surtees Soc.;Nennius (54) calls the place Catscaul). In theearly morning Oswald upreared with his ownbands a wooden cxoss, hastily prepared, aroundwhich the king and his troops knelt in prayer.In the battle that followed soon after daybreakon the heath-clad hills which look down uponthe valley of the Tyne, the Christians obtaineda decisive victory. The host of Caedwalla wasutterly routed, and its leader was pursued andslain at a brook called Denisesburna, a namewhich survived in the I3th century, and probablylater. At a subsequent period, after Oswald him-self had fallen in battle, the monks of Hexhammade a yearly pilgrimage to Hefenfelth on Os-wald’s death-day, and prayed for his soul on thescene of his greatest triumph (Beda, iii. 2). Alittle chapel was reared by them on the spot, therepresentative of which still survives andperpetuates the victor’s name. The cross itselfwas supposed to possess a peculiar sanctity.Before it was set up there was neither church,nor altar, nor cross in the whole of Bernicia.

The defeat of Caedwalla involved the recoveryof Northumbria, the two parts of which wereunited in Oswald, and he added to them thenorthern parts of the island, Lindsey, and apreponderating influence in East Anglia, Wessex,and elsewhere, among the four races, which gavehim the over-lordship of Britain such as wasexercised by Oswy his brother, and Edwin theirpredecessor (Beda, iii. 6). Oswald was a valiant

soldier when it was necessary to draw the sword,but in genins and disposition he was essentiallya lover of peace, and the work of his life and heartwas the diffusion of civilisation and religion. AtYork he resumed and completed the building ofthe minster which had been interrupted byEdwin’s death (Beda, ii. 14, 20), but we hear ofOswald chiefly in connexion with the northernpart of Bernicia. It was there that he resided,chiefly at Bebbanburg, the modern Bamborough.One of his first acts was to beg his old friends, themonks of Iona, to send a Christian missionaryto labour among his people. A bishop wasdespatched to Northumbria of the name ofCorman, who neither understood his flock, norpossessed the yielding persuasiveness that wonmen’s hearts. He returned to Iona in disgust,and was replaced by Aidan, a man of a differentcalibre and a sweeter temperament, who becameas popular as Corman had been distasteful(Beda, iii. 3). Aidan arrived in A.D. 635, and,to assimilate as far as possible his new home tohis old, Oswald gave him the little island ofLindisfarne. In energy and devotion the kingand the bishop were as brothers. When Aidanpreached, somewhat in his northern accent anddialect, Oswald frequently acted as interpreter.The bishop was sometimes a guest at the royaltable, not indeed as frequently as the kingwished. One Easter day they were togetherwhen the tidings came that the banquetting hallwas beleaguered bv a crowd of beggars, dear tohost and guest, waiting for what they could get.A silver dish filled with dainty cates had justbeen placed upon the table, when Oswald orderedits contents to be carried out to the expectingmultitude, and the very dish itself to be brokeninto fragments and distributed in the same way.Catching hold of the king’s hand, the good bishopexclaimed, “ May this hand never decay ” (Beda,iii. 6). I shall mention afterwards how thisprediction is said to have been fulfilled.

Through the zeal and example of Oswald andAidan, Christianity made rapid progress inNorthumbria (Beda, iii. 3). But Oswald wasalso instrumental in spreading it in Wessex.Oswald sought as his wife a daughter ofKynegils, king of that district, and it wasarranged that Kynegils should accept Chris-tianity before the marriage took place. Oswaldstood at the font as a sponsor for his futurefather-in-law, at Dorchester, in a.d. 635. Oneresult of the marriage and the baptism was theestablishment by the two kings of a bishop atDorchester and the gradual evangelization ofthe district (Beda, iii. 7). Reginald (cap. 11),without stating his authority, gives Oswald’swife the name of Cyneburga, and says that theyhad an only son. This was Ethelbald, after-wards king of Deira.

Oswald had only a short reign. He was killedin battle on the 5th of August, 642, in the 38thyear of his age “ per dolum,” as Nennius says (55).The fight took place at Maserfelth (Cocboy,in Nennius), an unknown site, but perhapsnear Oswestry, i.e. Oswald’s tree, in Shropshire.His foe was that bane of Northumbria the fiercePenda, the slayer of Edwin, and the friend ofCaedwalla who fell at Hefenfelth in 634.Oswald and Penda were opposed in religion andeverything else, and as Oswald had won Lindseyfrom Mercia, a struggle was sure to come sooner

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